Limerence (18 page)

“Get out, Chris!” I yell, pushing past him.

He turns to her. “Baby, I didn’t mean to do that. Come on, you know I didn’t mean to do that. It was just an accident—a shock when you grabbed me. It’s your fault if you think about it, you made me jump.”

Rachael clutches a hand to her reddening cheek. “Just get out.” She pushes him away when he tries to wrap his arms around her.

“Baby,” he begs when she shoves him away again. Chris looks at me. “This is all your fault.” He grinds out before storming off to the bedroom, coming back a moment later with his coat in hand. I watch him blankly, the breath that I have been holding leaving me slowly.

“I’ll come by later to see you, Rachael.” He opens the front door, turning to look back at her as he does.

“No, don’t bother, Chris,” she replies curtly. He curses under his breath, gives me one last angry glare. “You’ll feel better in a bit, when you’ve calmed down. I’ll swing by tomorrow and see you, this isn’t over Rachel.” He says and slams the door shut behind him.

We both stand there for a few moments in silence, not sure what to do with ourselves now that he is gone. I’m so angry with her right now, this is the last thing that I need—but then again, I just saw for myself how manipulating he could be. I need space to clear my head, I need space from her, from everything.

“I’m going for a shower.” I say and to the bathroom. I hear Rachael start to sweep up the pieces of Oliver’s mug from the floor, crying quietly as she does it.

I dress in jeans and a T-shirt after my shower, not wanting to see the strange claw-like marks along my thighs from my nighttime encounter with Mr Breckt—although the jury is still out on whether that actually happened. I shake my head, to clear my thoughts of
him
; now is not the time to be thinking of
him
. Now is the time for thinking about Oliver. Thinking about where he is, what he’s doing, and how I can help him.

Should I go looking for him? I stare at my reflection in the steamed-up mirror. Where would I start? I don’t really know what he’s been up to these last few weeks. Other than work, sleep, and our one night out together before he left. I realise that we haven’t spent any proper time together for far too long. My chest heaves with the need to cry, but I need to pull my shit together. Tears aren’t going to help him. I need to be strong. I need…Oliver, I think sadly. He would know what to do; he would have some great way of turning this situation around and making it seem less serious, less concerning, less…I don’t know. He’s not here though, and that’s the problem.

There’s a tap on the bathroom door. I hear Rachael’s tentative voice from the other side.

“Mia?”

None of this is her fault, yet I feel so angry with her.

“Mia, sweetie?”

“Honey?”

Why won’t she just leave me alone?

I grip the sink for support, the room spinning under the strain to hold in my emotions. I take a breath in, count to ten and release it, and close my eyes. This isn’t her fault. I know that I shouldn’t shut myself off from her, from everyone, but this is my coping mechanism. A coping mechanism that Oliver has asked me repeatedly to stop doing. I look at myself in the mirror again. My pale skin and hollow blue eyes stare back at me and I feel a strange sense of betrayal. As if the fact that I am cutting people off is in some way letting him down.

I listen. Silence.

It’s as if she has heard my thoughts and left me to my misery. My heart sinks even further. I don’t want her to go after all. All my emotions are churning up inside me and I can’t cope with them any longer.

I open the door in a rush. “Rachael,” I call out, my eyes falling to her sitting on the floor opposite the bathroom. Her head is in her hands and when she looks up to me, I see her cheek is still red from Chris’s slap. Her eyes are damp and smudged with mascara from crying, but she offers me a small smile nonetheless.

“I’m sorry, Mia.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “I’m sorry for letting him into our home, your home. I’m sorry that I’ve not been here for you and I’m sorry…”

I cut her off. “Don’t, Rach, it’s not your fault. We all make mistakes. Christ, I’ve made enough of them—look at the mess I’m in right now.” I shrug my shoulders and gesture around us.

“This isn’t your fault, Mia.” She stands up and comes over to me. Her t-shirt hangs from her, and I notice she’s lost too much weight.

“It is, Rach. It really is. Oliver wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for me, if it weren’t for my behaviour. I’ve been a crap fiancée to him and I’m under no illusions that this is probably all my fault.” I hug her fiercely, struggling to suppress my anguish.

“Mia, don’t say things like that.”

“It’s true though. Oliver wouldn’t have wanted to leave if it weren’t for me and now he’s…he’s…god knows where, Rachael.” I pull out of our hug and tuck my hair behind my ears. It’s still damp from my shower and dripping down my back, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but finding Oliver.

“Babes, Oliver left because of work. Not anything you did or didn’t do.” She looks me in the eye sternly.

“What if what the detective said is true though? What if something has happened to him because he was protecting me?”

“She doesn’t know that for certain, Mia. She shouldn’t say things like that without some sort of proof,” Rachael says with exasperation.

I think about what she’s saying. Is she right? I’m not sure. Either way it doesn’t change the fact that he’s still missing, and that I feel at least partly responsible for it.

“I’m going to look for him,” I say as I squeeze past her and go on the hunt for my car keys. I haven’t seen them in a couple of days—not since I drove to the police station with Mum. Dad had driven me home that night as I had been too upset to drive myself, but I know he’s brought my car back for me now.

“Where are you going to go?” Rachael follows me, concern etched across her face. “The police know what they’re doing, Mia. I think you should just let them do their job.”

Where am I going to look?

I go to the kitchen. “I’ve no idea where to look, Rach, but I can’t just sit here and not do anything anymore. I have to get out. I have to find him…I have to at least try.” I move things around on the breakfast bar, nearly cutting myself on Oliver’s broken mug. I pick up the pieces carefully. It’s beyond repair now, and I feel a surge of anger at Chris again.

“Are you two done now, then?” I snap and look up. Her hand subconsciously strokes her red cheek.

“Yes.” She looks down to her bare feet. “I don’t know what came over me, Mia. I just couldn’t stand the thought of being away from him. All I could think about was that I wanted him to like me, when he…” She swallows and looks back at me. “When he slapped me, it was like having freezing water tipped over my head. Like, I finally came to my senses.”

I don’t know what to say to her. She has never been like this over a man before. He seemed to suck every ounce of strength from her until she was a feeble little girl willing to do anything he asked. In some ways, though, I have similar feelings around Mr Breckt. The way he makes me feel, it just isn’t right.

Like he has power over me.

I look at Rachael. Her hair is unkempt and greasy, her skin is pale, and she has lost so much weight that her eyes look sunken.

She takes a steadying breath. “I have a strange recollection of meeting Mr Breckt. I don’t really remember anything about it, about him, but I know that Chris took me to see him . . . but I can’t remember a thing about it.” She fidgets, tugging at the strands of her hair. “I don’t want to see either of them again, Mia.” She rubs her hands over her face. “I’m scared of who I am when I’m with Chris, of how he makes me feel. I don’t know if it’s love or what, but if it is, I don’t ever want to be in love again.”

“That’s not what love is,” I answer honestly. “I won’t let him near you again, Rachael. I promise I won’t let him hurt you.”

She sobs. “
I’m
supposed to be looking after
you
, not the other way around.”

“It doesn’t matter who looks after who as long as we’re both okay, sweetie,” I reply with a smile, relief flooding me that Chris is finally out of our lives. I’m still left wondering what happened when Rachael had met Mr Breckt, though, and how Chris knows him.

*

We’ve been driving all day. I look to Rachael, who seems deep in thought. We have been up and down the coast and in and out of the woods for hours, searching for anything that might help. I know that it has been fruitless, but I feel better for doing something anyway. Once or twice, we noticed the police searching areas, but we didn’t see Detective Chaddock. The way she acted with me at the station leads me to believe that she thinks I know more than I do about Oliver’s whereabouts—or at least that there is more behind him leaving. Finding me driving around looking for him isn’t going to help my situation.

Yes, Detective, I just thought I would lend a hand with the search and rescue. No, I’ve no idea where he could be though, but I’m sure that I can do a better job than your highly trained officers can.

I freeze. Is that what this is? A search and rescue? Do I really want to consider the fact that he might actually be in danger? Hurt? Scared? Dead even? A shudder runs through me. How could they not know anything yet!
How could I have been so stupid as to let him leave?
I wonder for the hundredth time this week. I stare exasperatedly out of the windshield, the road whizzing past me in a blur, and I press my foot down on the accelerator.

There are so many questions whirling around my head, but I don’t know the answer to a single one of them. Detective Chaddock said that women had gone missing. I know a lot of them, and as I run the list through my head, I see a connection—or at the very least a similarity.

Emma: A waitress at Mums’ coffee shop. Mum had been asked to hand in her mobile to the police. She was the last one to hear from Emma when she had received a text saying she was ill and wouldn’t be in to work. Her boyfriend had reported her missing.

Hayley: One of the chambermaids from the Lagan hotel. Milly, the owner, had reported her missing after she missed so many shifts. She had received a text just like my Mum.

Then there’s Kate: Rach and I had thought that she’d gone travelling in Europe when she hadn’t turned up for work. Her flatmate had reported her missing after she had received a text from her but had then found her passport at home.

There were more girls, but I didn’t know them so well. However, the police had said there were over thirty missing people throughout our town and the next one over. Mainly women, but some men too, all in the space of a month. How has this been able to go on for so long? That’s an insanely large number. I shiver.

I wonder if all the other people had received texts or phone calls from their loved ones before they vanished.

I frown. How could they just go missing? How could no one have seen them? Someone must have seen something. I feel angry—really, really angry. Someone somewhere knows something, and unless they say something to the police, more people are going to get hurt. A thought occurs to me that I might never see Oliver again and pain shoots through my heart.

I press my foot down harder, my hair whipping around my face as the air rushes in from the open window. Anger surges through me. Was it really me that should have been taken instead of Oliver?

Oh, god, Oliver.

What if he’s hurt? Being held captive somewhere? The longer it is before he’s found, the greater chance there is that he could die.

If he hasn’t already.

I choke back the tears and drive faster, the seat belt clinging to my shoulder as I swing the car round a bend, the trees blurring into a mix of colours. I can’t breathe. I need to get out. I need air. I need Oliver. My imagination is running wild as I pull to the side of the road in a flurry of gravel and wheel spinning. The engine stalls and cuts out on me and I slip the hand brake on and dive out of the car. I run into the trees, branches slapping at my face, my feet catching on the brambles.

“Oliver,” I shout his name, running through the darkening forest.

“OLIVER!” I scream it louder, until my voice cuts out on the last syllable. Hands grip me and spin me around fiercely.

“Jesus, Mia.” Rachael is red-faced and flustered but continues to grip me, holding me close.

“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “I just want him back, Rachael. I just want Oliver back.” I cry into her shoulder and she pulls me into her arms, shushing into my hair.

We stay like this for so long my toes feel numb and my tears dry up. I shiver. I’m not sure if it’s the chill in the air or that my adrenalin has run out, but I feel exhausted.

“I need to get you back home, Mia.” Rachael rests her arm across my shoulders and we walk back to the car. I sit in the passenger seat and she drives us back to the apartment. There are no messages from Detective Chaddock when we get back, and my heart plummets at an entire day wasted.

“No news is good news, babe. I’ll put the kettle on and we can have a cup of tea.” Rachael coaxes me into my chair whilst she boils the kettle. She brings me some tea and painkillers for my throbbing head.